page_title: Geography of Canada
section_title: Rivers
hierarchical_section_title: Geography of Canada / Hydrography / Rivers
context_page_description: Canada has a vast geography that occupies much of the continent of North America, sharing land borders with the contiguous United States to the south and the U.S. state of Alaska to the northwest. Canada stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west; to the north lies the Arctic Ocean. Greenland is to the northeast and to the southeast Canada shares a maritime boundary with France's overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the last vestige of New France. By total area, Canada is the second-largest country in the world, after Russia. By land area alone, however, Canada ranks fourth, the difference being due to it having the world's largest proportion of fresh water lakes. Of Canada's thirteen provinces and territories, only two are landlocked while the other eleven all directly border one of three oceans.
  Canada is home to the world's northernmost settlement, Canadian Forces Station Alert, on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island—latitude 82.5°N—which lies 817 kilometres from the North Pole. Much of the Canadian Arctic is covered by ice and permafrost.
context_section_description: Canada's two longest rivers are the Mackenzie, which empties into the Arctic Ocean and drains a large part of northwestern Canada, and the St. Lawrence, which drains the Great Lakes and empties into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Mackenzie is over 4,200 km (2,600 mi) in length while the St. Lawrence is over 3,000 km (1,900 mi) in length. Rounding out the ten longest rivers within Canada are the Nelson, Churchill, Peace, Fraser, North Saskatchewan, Ottawa, Athabasca and Yukon rivers.
caption: Rivers  of Canada
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